This ‘AutonoMap’ Shows The Many Places Autonomous Vehicles Are Serving The Public Today
(It is recommended to click on the “large map” icon upper-right to explore the map.)
Above is “AutonoMap,” an attempt to map the growing number of places where mostly autonomous vehicles are out on roads and sidewalks carrying members of the public or cargo for them with no safety driver or other employee in the vehicle. Map markers in red indicate this state of full autonomy, other colors show public robotaxi service with an employee still in the vehicle, and some services planned to open up to the public in the future.
Most of the markers are smaller ones for delivery robots. These robots can never have a human on board, though most receive occasional advice from remote operators. Companies listed were asked to only provide vehicles that ran without remote operate guides a considerable majority of the time. Some of these robots operate on roads, but many operate on sidewalks, going on roads only in crosswalks. The sidewalk is an easier space to go autonomous, which is why there are more of these in production.
There are two layers in the map, one for robotaxis and one for delivery robots. Only autonomous delivery robots — including class 4 trucks from Gatik — are in that layer. The Robotaxi layer includes some projects which are not yet live and some with safety drivers which are marked with blue and orange markers.
Not shown are the many test projects which don’t serve the public. There are scores of these. If a good list of these is created, a new layer will be added. You can turn the visibility of the layers on and off to see only one type. I’ve left Motional/Nutonomy’s home base in Singapore on the map as the only testbed.
This map is somewhat of a response to people who claim autonomous vehicles are something of the far future. As the aphorism goes, it’s here, just not evenly distributed yet. However, it is largely limited to the USA and China, with a few areas in Europe, Canada, Korea and the Middle-East. This is due to the regulatory regimes in these areas. The USA has a permissive regulatory system — it’s permitted until somebody forbids it. China isn’t this way but can move quickly to change regulations.
While vehicles with safety drivers need to have superb safety records, an in theory are no different from vehicles with nobody in them, that’s just in theory. When a company deploys an unsupervised robot into the world, they are making a statement, “betting the farm” that they have made it safe enough to do that. They don’t bet the farm if they aren’t confident. Serving the public means not just being willing to take risks with strangers, but also letting the public and press see all the mistakes and realities of your system. It’s why doing this raises the bar so much.
A few companies, notably Neolix and Meituan in China, have not submitted their complete list of locations. The map will be updated as more data arrives. At the map’s web page there are details on the classifications on the map, and on how people can submit new entries. It should be noted that, particularly in China, these locations are not independently verified. Companies have asserted they meet the criteria.
